MEMORIES

Ginny Atchison

“When a tornado’s on top of you, you can’t take in any air. It seems like forever, but it’s just a few seconds. And you’re just gasping.”

By Delaney Hiegertdelaney.hiegert@cjonline.com

The June 8, 1966, Topeka tornado was one day before Ginny Atchison’s wedding shower.

Atchison, now 70, said she had to postpone the shower, but that’s not what makes that week in June stand out in her mind.

“It’s just a real memorable experience,” she said. “When a tornado’s on top of you, you can’t take in any air. It seems like forever, but it’s just a few seconds. And you’re just gasping.”

The tornado passed devastatingly close to Atchison’s neighborhood in the 1400 block of Lincoln, near Central Park.

“Everyone pretty much respected the tornadoes, so we had cellars or basements,” she said. “I lived at my grandmothers’ with my mom and aunt and uncle. All of us had gone to the basement when the sirens blew, but my husband stayed upstairs to watch.

“He went to the front of the house to look out the window, and then before I knew it, he was on a dead run to the basement. And he never got excited like that.”

During the storm, Atchison said, she looked up the stairs of the basement and could see her neighbor’s bedroom.

“I could see the walls bending and flinging back and forth, like a piece of straw,” she said. “When the tornado was over, that wall was leaning against our house. It was devastated.”

When the storm was over and neighbors emerged from the cellars and basements, Atchison said everyone seemed to be in shock.

“Nobody knew what to say or what to do. People started crying,” she said. “Everybody just kind of walked around numb.”

Although her house wasn’t as bad as others on her street, Atchison said, insurance ended up “totaling” it because it was so damaged.

“Everyone was sitting there that evening, laughing, thankful to be alive,” she said. “The kitchen was livable, so we grabbed a pillow or a blanket or whatever and slept there that night.”

Even after 50 years, Atchison can’t shake the vivid memories of that day.

“To this day, I still get choked up talking about it. Life goes on, and you learn from things. I’m not scared of tornadoes, but I sure respect them,” she said. “It makes you real respectful.”